The Role and Actions of the OAG in NZ.
In today’s NZ Herald Sir Ian Taylor write a piece about a report from John Ryan and the Office of the Auditor General.
Key points are:
“On December 7 I was sent a link to the Office of the Auditor-General’s report on its “Inquiry into Callaghan Innovation’s procurement process” as it related to a complaint laid by an organisation called Manaaki/We Are Indigo.
In this surprisingly detailed online media platform, posing as a media release, the Auditor-General packages his report into six conveniently summarised attention-grabbing chapters, to which are added six timelines, two appendices and a video (helpfully labelled – “without music”) where it seems to me he basically interviews himself.
However, the terms of reference the auditor-general set himself meant that he did not investigate any of the claims made by the founders against Manaaki/We Are Indigo, placing instead the focus solely on the due diligence process that uncovered the allegations, effectively removing the founders from what I believe is an important and long overdue investigation into the start-up ecosystem in New Zealand.
I accept I am not an expert in reviews such as these but I was surprised to see how frequently the auditor-general used the term – “In my view ….”. He used it 14 times, and what surprised me most was it looked like he seemed to use it to dismiss “evidentially” based opinions that had been provided to him that appeared to run counter to his view.
There are other examples of reports seemingly being side-lined in favour of the auditor-general’s views, but how would anyone know when the report has been presented in a way that doesn’t actually highlight that there are other views that might be equally legitimate.
The overriding impact of such a carefully managed media release is that it has successfully moved the discussion away from the alleged activities that created the need for a due diligence process, placing instead the focus solely on the process by which those alleged activities were uncovered. In my opinion, the founders have become pawns in a power game they have little to no influence on.”
Sir Ian clearly highlights another poor investigation/report by the OAG. I say “another” as the experience I (Alwyn Poole) has with them from 2018 – 2021 was the most bizarre I have experienced in “professional” life.
This included an extraordinarily long and incompetent process followed up by a press release (November 2021) that was factually inaccurate and clearly designed to cause harm. It should be noted that it was reported on by RNZ and NZH within two hours of release and without inviting conduct from the Villa Education Trust.
I comment on specific flaws in John Ryan’s report in substack post (link below). However, it is worth reflecting the circumstances of the press release.
When we challenged the press release Mr Ryan flatly refused to engage with us (none of the VET Trustees has ever been contacted by or had a conversation with Mr Ryan). He also flatly refused to correct his statement or challenge the way RNZ and the NZH used it. He has not apologised. In fact – in a response that defies logic Melanie Webb stated:
“In your email, you ask for a conversation with the Auditor-General and note you have not had an opportunity to engage with him directly. While the Auditor-General [John Ryan] was aware of the issues in this case and involved in finalising the report, the interaction with you and other parties during the inquiry was managed by the Inquiries Team you dealt with.”
On other words, although he made deeply harmful and inaccurate comments in a press release, and throughout the report, he knows very little about it and couldn’t care less. How can this even be approaching the standard the OAG is trying to say they expect of others? All impressions taken is that John Ryan is an odious and imbalanced individual without the professional integrity to speak to people that he harmfully and inaccurately press releases against. He also clearly heads an incompetent team.
Respecting the desire for brevity on a blog I have the full details of what I submitted to the Education and Workforce Select Committee here:
https://alwynpoole.substack.com/p/the-role-of-the-oag-in-nz
For those with public sector and legal minds please have a read. Feedback always welcome (and moral support it was, and remains a hard time). Because John Ryan was challenged back he has been like a Fox Terrier puppy with a prized sock and has ensure that VET is referred to in this year’s report on schools – based on 2018. I have not been on the VET for over two years and never had any financial decision-making or spending power (it is called a separation of duty John – you use them to manage conflicts of interest) – but this nonsense still irks and besmirches. In the report one suggest John Ryan made is that we should have written a book he had written a few years back … I didn’t even know he existed.
Comment to the Education and Work Force Select Committee on the OAG report into the South Auckland Middle School and Middle School West Auckland Designated Character School EBOT.
25th June 2022
Background/Introduction
During the time the OAG report related to the VET was made up of five people – all acting voluntarily in that role. Two of the Trustees indeed had no professional role in providing any of the education management services. The VET was established in 2002 and has been successfully audited as a charity every year. A Trust of this form has no “owners”.
In 2018 the VET and its employees had a huge range of responsibilities.
1) Oversight of Mt Hobson Middle School as a highly successful private school.
2) Oversight of South Auckland Middle School (SAMS) as a Partnership School (PSKH). I don’t know why John Ryan inaccurately refers to it as a “Charter School” in his report – that was never a legal term for those entities.
3) Oversight of Middle School West Auckland as a PSKH.
4) Oversight of the closure process of South Auckland Middle School as a PSKH including significant legal work with effectively having to terminate all contracts (employment and otherwise).
5) Oversight of the closure process of MSWA as a PSKH including significant legal work with effectively having to terminate all contracts and in-depth meetings with Ministry officials
6) Application and work on the establishment of SAMS as a new school under the Designated Character model. Including an extra external evaluation that no other organisations were subjected to.
7) Application and work on the establishment of SAMS as a new school under the Designated Character model. Including an extra external evaluation that no other organisations were subjected to.
In terms of the process of closing SAMS PSKH and MSWA PSKH the Ministry of Education informed us in no uncertain terms that it was a school closure and that there was no guarantee that our applications for the new schools would be accepted by the Minister. Under the terms of those contracts, it is also highly inappropriate that John Ryan included any information, amounts or inferences about the closure process. As the sponsor of those two schools the VET and all activities are outside the OAG jurisdiction and all references should be removed from the report. John Ryan knows this as he noted: “This inquiry is being carried out under section 18 of the Public Audit Act 2001, because it relates to a public organisation’s use of resources.” Neither the VET nor the SAMS PSKH, MSWA PSKH are/were public organisations. Incredibly poor work by John Ryan.
The two schools operated superbly throughout 2018 as PSKH and had notable metrics against schools of similar decile, size and year levels. Indeed, the Martin Jenkins final report on the PSKH model is a ringing endorsement of the schools including management, oversight and leadership.
Cognition Education reported: “In summary we find and conclude that in both schools, the management and staff are actively involved in continuous development, and the delivery, of a unique programme of teaching and learning which is based on a comprehensive ‘local’ curriculum that is aligned with the New Zealand Curriculum, and which provides for the personalised needs of priority learners ‘many of whom have been failed by the current education system.
Based on our findings and conclusions, and our experiences in a wide range of New Zealand State schools, Cognition has assessed the local curriculum, teaching and learning within both SAMS and MSWA as being unique and of a ‘special character’ when compared to that provided at ordinary state schools.”
To summarise to this point re the new schools. The VET applied to establish them. The VET was approved as “proprietor” (the legal term). The Minister appointed the five members of the VET to the combined EBOT for the two schools. The Minister acknowledged the quality of the governance, management and leadership and expressed an endorsement that we would do the new work of establishment.
The AOG took an extra-ordinary length of time and created huge amounts of stress and significant personal harm. When asked why things were taking so long they effectively told us they had bigger fish to fry. It took 18 months for them to carry out a report that has told us would not be necessary if the Ministry of Education assured them that there was no integrity issue. They subsequently directly refused to let us know what the Ministry had said early in the process until this appeared in the report and had come from the Ministry of Education.
[The Ministry told us that there was … no reason to question whether the [Establishment Board] and [Villa Education Trust] have acted in good faith and on a basis they deemed appropriate.
The report was, from that point, demonstrably, a waste of time. The Ministry appointed Governance Adviser had also commented:
We [the OAG] spoke to the governance facilitator engaged to support the Establishment Board during this time. He confirmed that a lot of work was needed and considered that no-one else other than Villa Education Trust could have done the necessary work. He recalled frequent meetings with Ministry staff at the time, and his view was that it was a new and challenging environment for all involved.
(Details: alwynpoole.substack.com/p/the-role-of-the-oag-in-nz )
A note on the Interviews (April 13 & 14 2021)
The two people who carried out the interviews gave every impression of being under-prepared and having significant cognitive dissonance in terms of every aspect of the process of the application and operation of the schools. They asked questions outside their purview and often appeared distracted and seemed to ignore responses – possibly leading to John Ryan’s comments on “lack of evidence”. It was also significant that the interviewers complained that four of our Trustees had a support person with them. On three occasions it was Karen Poole. The Trust complained about the approach of the interviewers to the OAG but Melanie Webb refused to speak to any of the Trustees to establish any grounds for the complaint. She simply asked the interviewers and they said they had done a good job. Hardly seems a good practice for an investigator’s office. Webb then wrote to us to remind us that the interview content was “confidential” and that we were expected to keep to that. Their interviewers said the Karen Poole being a support person could have “intimidated” the other Board members. They are people we have known and worked with from as far back as 1998. Karen is as intimidating as a Marmot.
(details – including legal challenge to AOG on interviewers conduct: alwynpoole.substack.com/p/the-role-of-the-oag-in-nz)
Concluding Statement from Alwyn Poole to E&WSC.
I appreciate the Education and Workforce Committee’s interest in this matter. I consider in incredibly important that the John Ryan and the OAG is subject to effective oversight. Please do your job!
The Villa Education Trust, lead superbly by CEO Karen Poole, has done incredible work in the field of education and improved the outcomes of young people in the thousands. The organisation’s schools run efficiently and make such good use of funds that at SAMS and MSWA all school uniform, stationery and IT is provided for free and teacher student ratio is help at 15:1. Every official education report from ERO, Martin Jenkins, Cognition Education has been outstanding.
It is very hard to understand the way the John Ryan and team went about this process. The standards they claim to uphold in their evaluation of entities were by no means kept by themselves. Even the length of time taken shows deep inefficiencies.
The nature of the language used in both the report, as well as being incorrect in many places, also appears to be designed to cause maximum personal damage. The members of Ryan’s team seem to have taken personal dislike to Karen Poole as Trust CEO as evidence by comments from the interviewers and unfounded statements in the report.
It should be noted that the Ministry of Education were so supportive that they wrote the counter press-release to that of John Ryan.
John Ryan would have been aware of the public profile of the Trust and likely to have understood that his freewheeling press release comments would be picked up by media outlets. The three media articles remain up with harmful headlines and content that the members of the VET, let alone Karen Poole, do not deserve.
It is highly ironic that John Ryan and his team appear to have no level of being accountable for the harm they cause. At a bare minimum there should be a full and public apology & retraction of the report and press releases. Resignations would also be appropriate.
Alwyn Poole
Innovative Education Consultants
www.innovativeeducation.co.nz
www.alwynpoole.substack.com
www.linkedin.com/in/alwyn-poole-16b02151/
